


The Only Lie

by carinascott



Category: Leverage
Genre: F/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-22
Updated: 2012-02-22
Packaged: 2017-10-31 14:18:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carinascott/pseuds/carinascott
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie only lied to Nate once.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Lie

**Author's Note:**

> Response to a prompt from a friend. I don't write het often, implied or otherwise, so I hope it works.

Maggie had always worked hard to be honest with Nate during their marriage. After growing up in a chaotic home, her parent's marriage full of lies and half-truths, Maggie knew she didn't want that in her own marriage.

So, even when she knew it would cause pain for her husband, she would always tell him the truth.

And in return, Nate did the same. 

Their pact to always be open and honest with each other had caused more than a few tears and heated arguments, but it also made their marriage more solid than most. She trusted Nate implicitly, and even when his job kept him away from home, the long hours he put in meaning he often came home long after she and Sam had turned in for the night, that trust didn't waver. 

Their marriage was tested fiercely when Sam got sick, the worry over his diagnosis weighed heavily on both of them, and at times that worry caused them to lash out at each other. 

Sam's death proved too much in the end, and their marriage died right along with their son. 

But, contrary to what she told Nate after they'd brought Blackpoole down, she never stopped loving him. Maybe she loved the old, happier Nate more than the man that she saw when she looked at him now, but the love was still there. It was the first time she'd ever lied to Nate in all her years of knowing and loving him, but she'd felt the lie a necessary evil. Nate had been her first real love, and even now he remained her only true love, but that wasn't enough. 

As easy as it would be to just try and pick up where they'd left off, she couldn't do it. Nate deserved better. _Needed_ better. 

This ragtag crew of misfit criminals he'd found seemed to be just that. Parker, Alec, Eliot, and even Sophie awoke a part of Nate that had been dead since Sam's passing. They were his possibility for a brighter future, and Maggie was simply a reminder of his dark and painful past.

She wouldn't mind another chance with Nate, but not right now. Maybe down the line a few years, when he could look at her, look at _himself _, and feel more than guilt and pain; maybe then she'd tell him the truth.__

Until then she was content to stay on the outside looking in; that one lie, large by any measure, the one thread keeping the tattered threads of Nathan Ford together.

END


End file.
